La Nymphe surprise is an 1861 oil-on-canvas painting by the French
Impressionist painter
Édouard Manet. The painting depicts a young woman (described as a
nymph) sitting in a wooded landscape beside a lake, looking surprised at the viewer. A blue
iris grows at her feet, and she is nude except for pearls around her neck and a ring on her little finger. The model for the painting was
Suzanne Leenhoff, a Dutch pianist with whom Manet had an affair; they later married in 1863. The work is in the collection of the
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Painting credit: Édouard Manet